DThe health insurance company painted a terrible scene on the wall. The AOK Group alone predicts that the deficit in 2021 will exceed 4 billion euros.overall arrangement According to FAZ information, the problem Statutory health insurance (GKV) In the first half of the year, expenditures increased by more than 1.9 billion euros. At this point in 2020, there is an increase of 1.3 billion. Reasons for rising costs are expensive laws, higher remuneration, and the new coronavirus: delayed services can now be made up for.
Financing in 2021 appears to be almost guaranteed. Because additional donations and federal subsidies are increasing, and because cash reserves are being used, it can make up for the missing 16 billion euros. But by 2022, when similar negative numbers are pending, the outlook looks bleak. If the federal government wants to maintain a “social security” of up to 40% of insurance contributions, it cannot increase contributions further.
So where should the missing billions come from?The Minister of Health has agreed Jens Spann (CDU) and Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz (SPD) have further increased the already extravagant federal funding of 14.5 billion euros. It will increase by 5 billion in 2021, and it is planned to increase by 7 billion in 2022. However, this is not enough, Spahn also wants 5.5 billion euros.
90% of the insured are affected
If the fund’s forecast is correct, there will be a shortfall of 10 billion euros in 2022, despite a record federal transfer payment. Part of this can be paid again from the cash reserve, which remains at 16 billion euros. However, greater tax participation is inevitable. This is exactly what the law on the further development of medical care provides.Until the end of the year, it authorized Spahn, together with Schultz And approved by the Bundestag to further increase funding.
After submitting bad data for half a year, cashiers urged this leverage before the election. The Alternative Fund hopes to convene a special session of the Bundestag on September 9. The Federal Association of AOK warned that otherwise there would be a threat of “overall increase in payment rates” at the end of the year.
I’m political campaign However, the financial disaster that affected 90% of the insured did not work. Since the pay-as-you-go GKV system is no longer sustainable, citizens will have to pay more deeply in the future-whether as taxpayers or donors-unable to win flower pots from voters. It should be fine for Ministers Spahn and Scholz to leave the minefields to their successors.
Fear of citizen insurance
There is almost no content about the overdue SHI reform in the project. The league basically wants everything to stay the same. It “continues to rely on income-related parity contributions, personal contributions, and the tax portion of non-insurance benefits.” FDP hopes to “adapt the health system to population development…adapt”, but did not say how. After all, the Liberal Party is committed to “strong” private health insurance (PKV). On the other hand, trade unions used to be lawyers for private insureds and even no longer mention them. The idea of AfD is based on the “existing German health system”. The party hopes that there will be many changes, but not in terms of basic funding.
Left-wing parties are more ambitious. Social Democratic Party, The Green Party and the leftists hope to change the system to citizen insurance. If they form the next government, the financial structure is likely to undergo fundamental changes. Then all people and other types of income will be included in the statutory health insurance. Economists have calculated that this actually reduces the burden on the national treasury in the short term. Distorted demographics and chronic underfunding cannot be cured in this way.
The Private Health Insurance Association, which is only concerned about citizen insurance, reviewed the Green Party’s position paper and concluded that including investment income or rent will mainly attract pensioners who use these income for retirement. Those who receive a monthly pension of €625 and an additional €1640 must use the green model to pay at least 68% of GKV contributions.
Both sides avoided another unpopular question: how to cut expenses instead of increasing revenue. Bielefeld health economist Wolfgang Greiner (Wolfgang Greiner) mentioned the overcapacity of the clinic. Fewer hospitals of higher quality are needed, and more outpatient clinics are needed in these hospitals instead of expensive hospital treatments. Digitization also helps to save. At the same time, you must “very rigorously check whether something is contained in the service catalog.” It is important to put forward higher prescription requirements for new health applications and consider whether and how to reimburse expensive gene therapies or treatments for rare diseases.
What do economists think about simply increasing the statutory health insurance budget as planned? “Through higher tax subsidies, you can avoid unpleasant increases in contribution rates in the first place,” Greiner said. “Only later generations of politicians will find that even with tax subsidies, money does not fall from the sky.”
